Long Hard Work

With the exception of a beautiful weekend visit to a small village, it seems like James and I have rarely left the coaching office in weeks. Last time James went out I heard the guard exclaim, “James, you’re outside!” It turns out that creating 31 Integral Coaching programs in 10 days is quite the feat.

While we had hoped there would be some way to streamline the process with so many people, the nature of the programs is so individualized that the large quantity didn’t reduce the amount of work, and in fact has made for new challenges in terms of organization. We’ve certainly learned a lot about the lack of infrastructure here – for example, with occasional electricity and all of our assessments stored on one computer and a flash drive, we’ve been maneuvering data back and forth, spending a significant amount of time with snaking tangles of cords, invertors, generators, and headlamps. Things just take longer here, and the amount of work we’ve been doing is extremely substantial, even if we were in pristine working conditions.

Yet, we were well aware and prepared for this, and given that it’s the first time doing anything like this, we are not discouraged, rather are discussing how it could work better in the future. What truly matters is that we are able to impart on these leaders all that James can offer through the Integral Coaching method, and so we have been working very hard to create powerful and sustainable programs for them.

After completing all of the intake meetings, we’ve had 8 days to work through each individual’s AQAL assessment and create a coaching program that will help them to expand their leadership to the next level. James realized that in order for the results of this endeavor to truly show what was accomplished here, he had to record a significant amount of data about each individual. So even though there are clear themes in the participants’ development, he has needed to be very thorough in his description of each person in order for this information to be useful to others.

James first distilled each person’s goal into one concrete statement, which he then creates his or her program around. These are different for each person, based upon their next desired steps in their own leadership path. Examples include, “to become more able to express the voice of my vision more clearly to others.” And “to increase my personal power, such that I can respectively mobilize others.”

The next few days were dedicated to the assessment, and then came the fun part – metaphors! A key component of the Integral Coaching method is to offer the participant two metaphorical images. One represents the qualities of their current way of being in their goal, which helps them begin to see it and work with it. The second metaphor includes the new qualities they will need to build in order to become successful in what they want to achieve. Each one is unique for the person.

Before coming here I read literature and guide books about Nigeria, writing down culturally relevant metaphors that we could use. While this was a fun process, it turns out that it was easier to do this in real time, thinking of the most appropriate metaphor and considering if it will be culturally appropriate. For the most part this hasn’t been a huge limitation – while there are some things that don’t exist here, we’ve been able to find a decent equivalent – for example, using an Iroko Tree instead of an Oak Tree. After creating all the metaphors, we ran them by the local manager, Patricia, to make sure there weren’t any that would be inappropriate. One interesting difference was that she said definitely not to use the metaphor of an Investment Banker. She said this would be viewed very negatively as people think of them as frauds here. We’ve been lucky to have her help with the nuances of the metaphors, choosing animals that live here, instruments people have heard of, etc.

During the middle of the metaphor process, Mike, Gail, and Lisa convinced us to come away for a weekend to a village several hours northeast of Calabar. While we knew we didn’t really have time for this, it felt very important that we get out and meet people and see the land. I am so grateful that we did! If I have time I’ll describe the trip in a future blog, but for now I’ll just say that it was a hugely inspiring experience to actually meet the people whose lives are being impacted by the Leading From Within participants. I came back with renewed energy for the long hours, as well as a significant number of bug bites. Ever-dedicated James continued on with the metaphor process in the car, with his laptop out in the backseat for much of the 6 hour drive each way.

With all the offer meetings coming back to back, we’re in serious time crunch mode, and the question continues to be - will we make it in time?